Overview

Water is one of the Earth's most precious and widely used resources. As such, it is important to understand the hydrological processes that distribute water around the globe. Radar imagery is well suited for hydrological applications in part due to the sensitivity of the SAR to surface roughness and hence the ability to delineate between water and land boundaries.

RADARSAT-2, with its polarimetric capabilities, provides increased data availability and is expected to enhance the information content for soil-moisture measurement, snow pack monitoring and analysis, in addition to improving the potential of SAR for wetland mapping and discrimination.

The high spatial detail provided by the Ultra-Fine beam mode (3m resolution) will benefit coastal applications involving coastline mapping, mapping of tidal and near-shore terrestrial areas, and mapping of near-shore bathymetry.